1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to product filling machines for packaging food products and the like. More particularly, the present invention relates to an improved system for dividing a single product flow into multiple pathways in order to supply multiple product packaging machines.
2. State of the Art
In the food production and packaging industry, products known as long goods typically require special handling. Long goods include products such as spaghetti, linguini, and fettuccini and similar products. These products present unique handling problems because of their length and flexibility, and also because they are typically sticky. These characteristics make it difficult to handle and package the product without damaging it, such as by cutting or crushing noodles. Those in the industry will understand that each increment of damage to the product causes a corresponding reduction in the value of the final product. Accordingly, product handling and packaging operations are judged by two criteria: speed and lack of damage to the product.
In view of these twin criteria, dividing a large continuous stream of long goods, such as cooked spaghetti, into a plurality of smaller streams presents unique difficulties. In the product packaging industry, it is well known to divide a stream of product into several smaller streams and divert those smaller streams to individual packaging machines. For example, this approach is routinely used with dry or granular products such as nuts, berries, hard candies, or cigarettes. This approach is also used with liquid or mostly liquid products such as soup, stew, fruit cocktail, etc. In such operations, the product stream, normally flowing or rolling in an open conduit, is redirected by means of diversion gates which move from one position to another to send the entire flow of product down one or the other of two branching channels. A series of such gates can be used to divide one stream into many.
While a system of diversion gates works well with granular or liquid products, it is not suitable for long goods such as cooked spaghetti for several reasons. First, the long noodles tend to snag on the diversion gate, either preventing the gate from closing completely, or causing the noodles to be cut and damaged. This system also tends to cause clogs because the entire flow is diverted all at once, rather than just a portion of the flow. Additionally, the noodles which snag on the diversion gates also tend to cause clogs. All of these failures of prior art product diversion systems result in lost time, lost product, and needless maintenance effort and expense.
Additionally, prior art product stream diversion methods frequently cannot adequately cope with sudden changes in the system. For example, where a product diversion system is configured to divide one stream into four to supply four container filling machines, if one of the four filling machines malfunctions and has to be shut down, many prior art product diversion systems cannot automatically cope with this sudden change in conditions. Prior art systems do not automatically detect the malfunction, and do not automatically adjust the product distribution to shut down one outlet line, and redistribute and balance the remaining flow to each of the remaining lines. In such a situation, significant worker time and expertise is required to adjust the entire system to allow the product run to continue. In many cases, this results in down time for the entire operation.
It would thus be desirable to have a product distribution system that can quickly and efficiently divide a stream of long, sticky goods into a plurality of streams without damaging the product. It would also be desirable to have a product distribution system that can automatically detect the malfunction of any of its elements or of product filling machines associated with it, and automatically adjust the entire system to accommodate the malfunction without requiring shut down or significant operator attention.